


Ripples

by childishillusions



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 17:21:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5710735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/childishillusions/pseuds/childishillusions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vox Machina decided to trust Allura and Kima with the information that they had taken the Horn of Orcus out of the Underdark. Explaining everything took a bit more time than they expected. Surely a bit of tardiness will not affect things much?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ripples

**Author's Note:**

> A "what if" fic. Enjoy :3

After Tiberius tried convincing Scanlan to switch items – the ion stone for a crown of concentration and not quite succeeding (at least for now) Vox Machina knew that they had a choice before them. Would they go straight to the Emperor with the evil thing in their possession… Or would they find… Somewhere to hide it before they spoke to him and the rest of the council?

Should they tell Kima now, before they leave Greyskull and pray that her reaction to them having the Horn of Orcus was a good one? For the most part they trusted her, but Keyleth had pointed out that the paladin (whom none of them knew beyond the fact that she was a friend of Allura’s and the god she worshipped. They knew some of her personality, but masks and affectations could be worn and maintained by those determined enough to do so).

Then again… Allura would know Kima better than they did, which would mean that she would know if something had changed within her friend. There was also the small but dangerous chance that Allura knew that Kima was going after the Horn of Orcus and that the two of them planned to do terrible, terrible things with such a black artifact. None of them wanted to believe that (particularly Tiberius as the Dragonborn had a huge puppy-crush on the powerful Arcanist) she had dark designs, partially because the thought of attempting to face her down was a horrific prospect to even begin considering.

When Kima came down stairs, all of Vox Machina stared at her, some fidgeting awkwardly, others clenching and unclenching their hands and everyone tense and failing not to feel awkward (except for Grog, who had left once again for the shrine to Sarenrae and Pike who had gone along with him, making sure to have an earring on her, in case the others called in for help or decided to tell Kima the truth).

Eventually Percy cleared his throat and quirked an eyebrow at his companions, silently asking if they were going to tell the paladin now, or leave the surprise that they did in fact have the Horn of Orcus with them when they got to Allura’s place – or in the palace itself. Several nearly silent sighs and grimacing nods later the exiled noble cleared his throat again and murmured quietly “We were not completely truthful to you last night, Kima. We did keep the horn of Orcus – it is in the Bag of Holding that Grog is carrying around – we have made sure to remove anything that might get corrupted by it.”

The follower of Bahamut nodded once, looking over the group carefully “And… Where is Grog…?” Kima understood why they were reluctant to fully trust her – they had found her chained and tortured by Duregar and she had not been of sound mind. In addition the darkness of the Horn – while Vox Machina did not know of the full implications of how horrifying the implications of such an Artifact resurfacing. She was grateful that they did trust her enough to tell her that it was safer than being left in the Underdark where a deplorable number of Illithid could do a vast amount of harm if they were able to unlock even a fraction of the potential that lay within the Horn.

“He is with Pike in the small shrine we have to Sarenrae we have here in Greyskull Keep.” Vex’ahlia answered truthfully. “We saw what it was able to do to K’Varn and from what you said that the resurrection and the monstrosities that he made not being anywhere near what that awful thing is truly capable of we are… A little apprehensive about the Horn and what might happen if it fell into the wrong hands… Although whose hands are the right ones… With something as dark and potentially corrupting as it is…” The ranger stopped speaking, rubbing her left arm with her right hand slowly, a pinched frown appearing on her face.

“We need to destroy it, if possible. Or possibly banish it, so that no one would be able to reach it?” Vax suggested, looking at Scanlan “I remember that you banished that Queen – could you do that to the Horn?”

The bard shook his head a little “I cannot banish things permanently – Tiberius or Allura might be able to.”

“There’s also the problem that wherever we banish it to there are possibly going to be native creatures who live there and we would have no idea as to what or who might have found it and what they are doing with it in that dimension.” Tiberius responded, shaking his head a little. “Allura is a far more powerful spell caster than I am, she might know something that I do not. If we broke it into pieces – if that is even possible those pieces would need to be scattered as far away from one another as possible.”

Kima spoke up again “I understand your concerns – and I agree that if possible that the Horn should be destroyed completely – or at least into less dangerous pieces. I would recommend speaking with Allura as she may know a spell or ritual to destroy it. If she doesn’t, she is part of a powerful group of spell casters around Exandria and should be able to find the spells and materials if such can be found. This was sealed away a thousand years ago, along with the other Horn and the understanding of magic and how it works has been furthered.”

The members of Vox Machina glanced at one another for a couple of seconds before nodding – If they couldn’t trust Allura then they couldn’t trust anyone with the Horn and they might as well flee into the deepest depths of the wildest place they could find and become a small group of hermits protecting this awful, despicable thing.

“Very well then, I will tell Pike and Grog to come back now.” Percy responded before walking off to inform the duo of the decision that the rest of the party had come to. They could have used the earrings (not himself, as he did not have one of them, but one of the others) to tell the pair in the basement area, but it was a small advantage that none of them were quite aware that Kima knew that they had and if things did go pear-shaped (as it so often did for Vox Machina) they had a small advantage.

~

It was a little after noon when Arcanist Allura (brought up to speed on what they had found in the Underdark and why the adventuring group and her old friend were so very wound up about the Horn),  Lady Kima and Vox Machina made their way to the palace. Grog was in the middle of the group, rather than taking point or at the back to cover their track with dust of tracelessness as the Goliath held the Horn in the Bag of Holding.

As they entered the council chambers, they passed by a servant carrying something in her hands. None of them thought much of it – Uriel sent missives to many people and their news of retrieving one of the two Horns (they did not say the name of the dark god who’s item they possessed too many times, as it would be very bad if they were attract His attention – if they hadn’t been unfortunate enough to do so already) from a place of darkness.

It was decided that the Horn – in a specifically prepared container brought by Paladins of Bahamut – would take the box to Vasselheim where it would be sealed away until such time that someone could figure out how to permanently destroy the wretched object. Vox Machina was going along with the paladins in the Airship once the group arrived to take the Horn to a safer place.

Allura coordinated with Kima and they were able to get the paladins and the Holy Container to Emon from the Dawn City within a couple of days. In that time Vox Machina stocked up on their store of potions and negotiated with Gilmore on the purchase of several magical weapons and items that might prove useful if they did need to fight.

~

They needed to get to Kraghammer in order to get paid for dealing with a _fucking Beholder_ among other things. Vox Machina had also retrieved an item that a member of House Thunderbrand would be interested in getting back. Hopefully they might be able to get something good in exchange – if not a re-enchantment of the magic carpet they had stolen from Allura then at least a monetary reward? It was not as if they had any pressing need to be in Emon.

“We could simply teleport to Emon, since we have completed our business here… Including being inducted into the Slayer’s Take, before going onwards to Kraghammer.” Tiberius suggested, sniffing just a little at the indignity of being forced into such a guild simply because they had decided to assist the city in repulsing a Hydra before it could break through one of the walls of the city.

“Last time we did that Vex and I had to fill out several hours worth of paperwork explaining why we used the circle of teleportation without permission. There is also the fact that Arcane magic is severely frowned upon in this city and is highly regulated.” Percy pointed out quietly “I would rather not irritate the Gatekeepers within Emon, simply because we did not want to take a longer route. I suggest that we speak to the captain of the Airship to see how long it will take them to re-fit the deck with the larger ballista. Taking a ship by water will easily take a couple of months if the weather is fair and we do not encounter pirates.”

Several frowns appeared on his friends’ faces as they thought about what they wanted to do and how they were going to accomplish doing it… Or at least as much of a plan as they always had before something inevitably went wrong, as things so often did. The thought of waiting a couple of days – and perhaps spending that time assisting Pike and the other followers of Sarenrae for the couple of days it would take for the Airship to be fully re-furnished was very tempting. It was doubtful that the Slayers take would have a quicker bounty… And Sindral _had_ sent half of their party after a fucking adult white dragon with (according to the numerous loud and unhappy protests and complaints) the noisiest librarian and wizard that any of them had ever met. The other group had been sent after a demon who’s core being was potentially immortal and they might thus have to deal with a pissed off Rakshasa later in their lives.

Scanlan piped up “We should ask the captain how long he thinks that it will take for the airship to be fully repaired. We do have a free place to stay and I think that we could use some down time – and Pike might need help finding people to fix up the Temple of Sarenrae! Or – we could run into _Zahra_ or one of the other members of the Slayers Take that we’ve met! You talked about the Cleric who kissed you Keyleth, but you did have an established member of the Slayers take leading your group? What was his name? What was he like?”

The druid princess sighed a little before responding “Thorbir was the – as he called it – _babysitter_ of our group. He was very grumpy and… Uhm… He seemed to be rather clumsy.” Along with the help of Tiberius and Vax’ildan the three members of Vox Machina who had assisted in the destruction of a Rakshasa described the irritable and strangely incompetent Dwarf whom they had the dubious pleasure of interacting with.

Vax remarked “He almost seemed to have anti-luck. You know how Percy seems to have chance on his side? Well I don’t know what deity Thorbir pissed off, but it seemed at almost every turn when he attempted to do something, it went awry somehow. He had accidentally got his axe stuck in the wooden door of the room that had an entrance to what would lead to the Oubliette and struggled to get the axe out of the door for a solid five minutes or so. “And I swear he was like that the _whole time_. If he wasn’t so earnest about trying to defeat that asshole I would have suspected that he was working with the Rakshasa, or trying to spare It.”

“Perhaps he was a little flustered at having to deal with a group of newcomers, and put up an irritable front to hide it?” Vex offered, though her eyes did narrow suspiciously at the description of the oddly inept Dwarf. She was rather intensely suspicious about the fact that someone who had gotten into the guild – and he couldn’t have just gotten in on a technicality, as Lyra had gotten in on a technicality and they had made her go up against a fucking _adult white dragon_ for her real initiation. Rimefang had also taken out more than one group of Hunters from the Slayer’s Take as well, and while the half-elf did not want to assume, Vex had wondered more than once if the Headmistress had wanted to see at least one of them (probably Lyra, if anyone) dead.

The group of adventurers continued to talk about whose task had been more difficult and the people who had been chosen to accompany them while they had been split apart while avoiding being thrown into prison for attempting to protect this ridiculous city as they walked towards the Airship docks.

~

On another continent, in a dark and dismal town as Vox Machina cheerfully talked with one another a carefully pinned to the bottom of a captive noble’s desk is a carefully folded piece of parchment. When the parchment is retrieved by long, gnarled fingers and opened before a very elderly human man it read innocently enough:

_Dear Archie,_

_My parents have decided to take me to Emon, as the construction of The Great Uriel Bridge is well under way and there is a formal event – a ball or a feast… Or a feast and a Ball being held in honor of the trade agreements and the closer ties between our city and Emon. Apparently anyone who is of import in Emon will be attending._

_Lord Tal’dorei offered us an invitation that extended to all of the nobles in our fair city to come and join in this momentous celebration, however as Father so rightly explained, our city is much smaller than Emon is and the fact that it takes a couple of weeks by carriage (taking into account the ruffians that may try to harass those who travel) to get from our city to Emon and that while our city has recovered somewhat from the unfortunate deaths of the previous noble families, there is still much to be done and that all of the nobles leaving Whitestone would cause unnecessary worry and strife amongst the common people._

_The emperor was understanding of this and from what Mother said was looking forwards to meeting me, as both of my parents had spoken of me in loving and high terms, if not but once or twice. I find myself eagerly looking forwards to seeing at least some of Emon – I have heard tell that it is much, much larger than Whitestone and I am very interested in seeing some of the wondrous sights that such a large city contain._

_I wanted to tell you this during the next lesson in philosophy that we had scheduled, but as the feast is going to be in a little less than a month from now, Father says that we need to pack and insure that we have all the things we need for the journey before the sun comes up, as bandits attack during the day, more than at night. I’m not quite sure how that works, but as I haven’t been outside of Whitestone – or Wildmount – for very long at all, I suppose he is right. Father generally is correct on many things._

_It’s likely that we have already left before you get this letter and are on our way to Emon. Worry not as I have made sure to pack early in order to make sure I have everything – and I have checked everything twice to make sure that I haven’t forgotten anything._

_Sincerely,_

_Cass_

The elderly Chancellor hobbled over to the young noblewoman’s closet and smiled a little in relief that the armor that had once been Cassandra’s mother’s (her true mother, not the twisted witch of a woman who along with her husband terrorized and demoralized the citizenry of Whitestone) was  gone. Archibald hoped that she would be able to use the armor if the young woman needed it – and if she could escape from the Briarwoods all the better. Archibald was certain that if she was able to escape she would be able to find her older brother – if those who had come from Emon with the tales of Vox Machina  and the de Rolo was young Percival. Even if he was from another branch of the noble family, he would be obligated to help her – or send her to his head of family for assistance and protection.

That was… If she would be able to get free of her captors long enough to ask for the de Rolo’s help. Archibald was loathed to admit it, while the Briarwoods were many things, dim-witted was not on their long list of faults. He closed his eyes and murmured a silent prayer to Pelor that young Cassandra might be able to find aid – or at least safety and protection in Emon.


End file.
